Latest COVID 19 patient is Tuk-tuk driver

Monday April 6, 2020 21:49:02

COMMUNITY TESTING: Sri Lanka is making plans to make sample Coronavirus tests on people who are not in hospital, the Head of the health service Anil Jasinghe said.

ECONOMYNEXT – Two more COVID 19 patients were reported today, taking the total reported to 178 since the outbreak Director-General Health Services Dr Anil Jasinghe said.
The first is a Three-wheeler driver from Jaela and “he has had many contacts and at present he is being interviewed and we are trying to trace his contacts,” he said.
The other person is a woman from the Puttalam area and we are tracing her contacts as well, Jasinghe said.
We are conducting more tests for COVID 19, at least three times the number that used to be done before.
We are planning to increase the number of tests and a plan is in place.
Jasinghe said that currently the testing is done under PCR and the Health Department is trying to validate the Rapid Test.
“At present we have not found that that Rapid Test is not up to standard and as soon as we get test kits that are acceptable we will begin to use them” Jasinghe said. (Colombo, April 6, 2020)